Tag: playgroup

So the other day I attended a playgroup and it was a huge flop for me/us. After the introductory greetings/conversation, everyone else pretty well paired off for conversations, leaving me sitting by myself, holding the baby and feeling that oh-so-familiar feeling of odd man out. Though I’ve felt that way much of my life since I’ve always been kinda weird I guess, rejection is not something I usually voluntarily sign on for. I kind of learned to stop putting myself out there because of this but, from time to time I “forget” and have have my delusion that things could be different. I really don’t have much in the line of friends so each time, I really hope that maybe that might be the day I make one. The ending is always the same but, hey, a girl can dream, right?

As if that wasn’t enough, Calvin tried and tried to play but every time he found something to play with, it would get taken from him. I’m pretty sure he was the oldest by quite a bit, as well. He finally tried to play with a little girl who had a ball he so desperately wanted to play with – especially since the one time he got one, it was quickly taken away form him – but every time he’d get close and start to try to play with her with the ball, she would stop and scream, almost as though he were trying to hurt her. I kept looking around, thinking the kid’s mom would surely go to her and try to explain that this little boy wanted to play with her but no such luck…. After a few times of this, Calvin gave up and came back, dejected, to me. He tried to crawl under the chair I was sitting in and it was obvious he was trying not to cry. I asked him if he wanted to call it off because, at this point, I so very much did. Naturally, he did, too.

Now, I’m not unrealistic enough to not see that my kid – one of the oldest there – can be hard to take. He is and I totally get that. He’s basically a poster child for Hyperactivity, which we’re hoping he outgrows but in the meantime, what can you do? He’s super outgoing, very friendly, very boisterous, very inclusive. He’s also pretty easily (emotionally) hurt. So, to him, This. Was. Devastating.

There’s another one coming up but I’m really just not sure I want to bother. I kind of don’t but I feel guilty because the leader reached out to me and I explained some of what happened. She’s invited me to come back and try again but I really just don’t know.

I realize that I sound like Debbie Downer here, though I’m not sure what else I should think. After all, didn’t someone once say that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?